OFFICER DOWN, OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN, OFFICER DIBBLE and HANK stand in a rain washed street, weapons at the ready. HANK plants a breaching charge on the back door to a building. OFFICER DOWN takes out a gun-shaped camera device.

OFFICER DOWN
I’ll use the Opti-Wand!

HANK
We don’t need to, there’s no-one behind this.

OFFICER DOWN holsters the OPTI-WAND with a silent sadness. HANK detonates the breaching charge.

OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN
Police! Everybody get down!

OFFICER DIBBLE
Get down and put your hands up!

OFFICER DOWN
Everybody freeze!

The smoke clears. The hallway beyond is empty. OFFICER DOWN and OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN progress down the hall and turn into a side room.

OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN readies his zip-cuffs. The CIVILIAN continues to stand.

CIVILIAN
This is my shop! I’m not a criminal!

OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN
Shut the fuck up, sir.

CIVILIAN
I didn’t do anything wrong!

OFFICER DOWN
I’m going to shoot him.

OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN
Don’t shoot him! Sir, you have one more fucking chance to put your fucking hands up before we fucking kneecap you.

CIVILIAN
This is my shop! Why don’t you go after the shooters?

OFFICER DOWN shoots the CIVILIAN in the knee.

CIVILIAN
Aaaaaaarggh! Oh God!

The CIVILIAN tries to hobble out of the room.

OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMANPUT YOUR FUCKING HANDS ON YOUR FUCKING HEAD OR I SWEAR TO GOD, SIR…

The CIVILIAN cowers in the corner. OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN puts his zip cuffs away, draws his M1911 pistol and shoots him in the other knee.

CIVILIAN
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGHH! Oh Jesus, help me!

OFFICER DOWN
We’re going to have to kill him.

OFFICER DIBBLE passes and stops in the doorway.

OFFICER DIBBLE
That looks really bad from out here.

OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN looks at the CIVILIAN with infinite sadness. OFFICER DOWN shoots the CIVLIAN in the leg again.

CIVILIAN
Aaaaah!

OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN shoots the CIVILIAN in the leg again. OFFICER DOWN shoots the CIVLIAN in the leg again. OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN shoots the CIVILIAN in the leg again. The CIVILIAN collapses. OFFICER ANDAGENTLEMAN shoots him three times in the face. Fade to black.

Follow

Graham: This made no sense to me until I read the title -- and then it was very, very funny. Just reminds me of how much potential there is in game-to-movie adaptations. I've often wondered why no one has ever written a film like this. Some sorry writer is commissioned to port some ridiculous game license to the silver screen, and rather than use it as an excuse to do something original, they always seem to try too hard to turn it into some wholly uninteresting action movie slog. I suppose it's clueless producers that are to blame, but given that they so often pick the most unlikely candidates to turn into films, one wonders why no one has gone at least a little Kaufman-esque.

The Culture Vulture: Too true. I continue to find it quite astonishing that professional screenwriters and production companies are unable to put together a single decent film of a game, particularly when fans have been generating interesting narrative for years, both through slash fiction and Machinima (good bit in the Guardian last week on this)

JohnMid: So I guess the civilian AI/scripted response isn't all its cracked up to be in SWAT4?

Officer Down was played by Craig Pearson, Tom Francis was Officer Andagentleman, Officer Dibble was played by Steve Williams and Hank was Tim Edwards.

SWAT 4 2: Electric Boogaloo coming soon.

CannedLizard: You have to love those stubborn civilians. Since my usual weapon is a beanbag shotgun, I just peg them in the nuts a few times, then spray them with pepper spray. Kneecapping them never really seems to help.

Dabs: "I'm not a criminal!" "Shut the fuck up, sir." Heh. Hilarious because it's just so damn true.

Aubrey: Interesting, interesting.

To me, this makes a very good point about generative narrative. This piece reads more like an "account of events" than a story.

So, if you want to generate a good story, you leave out the insignificant actions. Like, can anyone tell me at what point Jack Bauer takes a shit in 24? You can never tell! Maybe he holds it in all day? Maybe we don't have to care about Jack's shit at all.

So they skip the shit because it's insignificant. That's not to say it can't *be* significant - if Jack's been holding it in for a month, his demeanor will probably change, post shit, so his shit is significant, and story-worthy. (If I had a shit after that length of time, I would probably WANT a film crew to film it, too.)

So, what I'm saying is, generative storytelling through gameplay should see the game trying to anticipate what actions are significant, and highlight and support them for the player. At the same time it should be taking the insignificant and make it significant so that there's no boring train of similar actions. If people are picking up and dropping items in the game world, creating boring pieces of story ("Player1 picked up the pen. Player1 then placed the pen down again. Player1 picked up the pen again. Thoughtfully, Player1 put it down once more"), couldn't an NPC become significantly annoyed at this that they provoke the player into doing something more interesting? (Enpeecee said to Player1 "Stop Messing around, f4g0t. Some nazi war criminals are walking past the window!".)

Gazzy: "You're in my way, sir."

DemonDoll: Not having played the game I still think this is very funny. Unfortunately, hilarious commentary on the actual state of video gaming is not viewed as something that can be made into a movie for lack of accessibility to the general audience. It's just stupid and sad that they continue to adapt games into movies by cutting out everything that makes it a game while STILL alienating the general audience because it's advertised as a video-game movie. Fortunately, there exist independent niche studios such as Rooster Teeth making brilliant movie-type-things like Red vs Blue that keep very close ties with the source material of Halo, in this case.

Paul: Haha! So, so, so true... I must say though, your lucky to have friends who are willing to play this game with you!